In response to the utilitarian school of ethics, people often object that it is impossible to measure happiness, or to weigh the interests of two or more different sentient beings. A previous essay addresses this objection in brief; this essay will examine the issue more deeply.

Even if we cannot evaluate happiness, this in no way invalidates the principle of utility. If I lose the ability to perceive other people, they do not cease to exist; similarly, if I cannot perceive others’ happiness, their happiness still holds importance. It would indeed be tragic if we had no way of knowing how our actions affect others, but if this were the case, it would not constitute an argument against utilitarianism. At best, it could serve as a case for ethical egoism as the best method of increasing utility (see Argument 3 in “Using Utilitarianism to Argue Against Utilitarianism.”)

Observing Well-Being

Fortunately, we know a good deal about how our actions affect others. While we cannot precisely feel what another person feels, we can make inferences as to others’ internal states. Animals (human and non-human) communicate their feelings and preferences through their behavior: if you step on a cat’s tail, it cries out and darts away from you. This indicates that it strongly prefers to avoid having its tail stepped on.

Of course, a rock may roll downhill, but is this because it desires to be at the bottom of the hill? Indeed, if you drop a cat off a building it will fall, but is this because it desires to reach the ground? No, because these actions are not voluntary. A cat cries out intentionally or instinctively to express its pain. Some plants let out distress calls when damaged, but this does not indicate pain because plants do not possess consciousness or the capacity to feel pain. It is unclear where the line lies between an unconscious reaction as an evolutionary adaptation and a conscious response to pain, but it is clear that vertebrates feel pain and plants do not. Do insects feel pain or pleasure? Maybe. But the only important facts for the purposes of this argument are that many animals suffer, and they express their suffering in a manner that we can observe.

We can indirectly infer the internal states of others–not just pain, but every emotion on the spectrum. As social creatures, we have evolved to perceive each other’s feelings. We can gain knowledge as to what sorts of actions promote well-being and use this knowledge to increase the total happiness in the world.

Accumulating Knowledge

John Stuart Mill responds to a related objection in his definitive work, Utilitarianism:

Again, defenders of utility often find themselves called upon to reply to such objections as this- that there is not time, previous to action, for calculating and weighing the effects of any line of conduct on the general happiness. This is exactly as if any one were to say that it is impossible to guide our conduct by Christianity, because there is not time, on every occasion on which anything has to be done, to read through the Old and New Testaments. The answer to the objection is, that there has been ample time, namely, the whole past duration of the human species. During all that time, mankind have been learning by experience the tendencies of actions; on which experience all the prudence, as well as all the morality of life, are dependent. People talk as if the commencement of this course of experience had hitherto been put off, and as if, at the moment when some man feels tempted to meddle with the property or life of another, he had to begin considering for the first time whether murder and theft are injurious to human happiness. Even then I do not think that he would find the question very puzzling; but, at all events, the matter is now done to his hand.

Each individual person has spent considerable time learning what makes others feel pleasure and suffering, both through personal observation and through instruction. Parents teach their children how to respect others; “respect others” is another way of saying “do not cause others to suffer.” And throughout our lives, we learn through experience what sorts of behaviors promote others’ well-being. We learn to consider others’ interests and act to help others rather than hinder them.

And most of us become very good at it. You not only know what makes humans in general happy, but you know specifically what to do to make your mother happy, or your brother, or your husband. Perhaps your mother particularly dislikes when you chew your food loudly, or your husband greatly enjoys foot rubs. We accumulate such knowledge about our friends and relations, and can use it to increase utility.

We can also increase the well-being of those people with whom we do not have close relationships. Most people share certain tendencies as to what promotes their happiness. For example, nearly everyone dislikes physical pain [1]; so if I see a complete stranger who is about to walk through poison ivy, I can redirect her and feel confident that I have helped her. There is a small chance that she enjoys feeling poison ivy on her skin, but that is a risk worth taking.

Although we cannot be absolutely certain that a particular action will increase utility, absolute certainty is not necessary. Indeed, we cannot be absolutely certain about any empirical question. Gravity may cease to work tomorrow, but we still behave as though it will continue the way it has. We can make educated guesses as to what will increase utility and we will be correct most of the time.

Precision

Some may object that we cannot precisely measure happiness, and thus cannot weigh one person’s well-being against another’s. While there are limits to our capacity to measure happiness, we can indeed measure it (as discussed above), and some sorts of preferences clearly outweigh others. My personal desire to avoid significant injury outweighs my desire to shoot someone in the leg for fun (I do not happen to desire this at all, but suppose I did for the sake of argument); from this, and from my knowledge of other people’s desires, I can infer that another person’s preference to avoid injury outweighs my preference to shoot him for fun. In other words, the happiness I might gain from shooting someone pales in significance to the suffering he would experience if he sustained a major leg injury.

Some cases less clearly reveal which action best increases utility, and such situations are the source of much debate. For instance, does raising taxes on the wealthy improve the general welfare of society? We do not know the answer, but we do have evidence that points one direction or the other and we can collect still more evidence so as to better answer the question. However, irrespective of such cases, in many situations we can clearly observe that one choice increases utility to a greater extent than another. Additionally, people make many choices that clearly decrease utility, and we can improve the world by altering such choices.

Science

Recently, science has begun to directly investigate the question of what makes us happy. Every day, the science of positive psychology wades deeper into the sea of human happiness, and we learn more and more. Many popular science articles have been written on the subject. The field is still in its early stages, but as it develops, I think we will become very good at scientifically measuring happiness.

We know, for example, that many small experiences make people happier than a few big experiences. Money brings happiness up to a certain level of income, and then plateaus. Science has provided many insights into happiness, and will continue to do so. Indeed, this is the thesis of Sam Harris’s recent book, The Moral Landscape.

Empathy

Science tells us much about how to increase utility. But to effectively support the well-being of our communities, we must understand how our actions affect others on a personal level. Empathy is one of our best tools for this. When we can comprehend others’ positions, we can act in ways that support their interests. Empathy is the primary means through which we understand what makes others happy. If someone claims that we do not know how to make each other happy, she must claim that we have no empathy.

We can measure the well-being of the people around us, whether through science or through our personal capacity for empathy. We cannot measure happiness precisely, but we still know what sort of impact our actions have on the emotional states of those around us.

Notes

[1] It may seem that physical pain decreases utility by definition, but this is not so. It is important to distinguish between suffering and physical pain. Suffering _does_ necessarily decrease utility, but some forms of pain are enjoyable. For instance, stretching one's muscles hurts, but that hurting often brings pleasure--it hurts "in a good way."

Masochists get pleasure out of physically painful experiences that cause most people to suffer. It is not inconsistent with the idea of utilitarianism to inflict physical pain upon a masochist.

When I took physics, I learned that stars radiate light all throughout the electromagnetic spectrum, and radiate the most at some point in the visible spectrum. Our sun radiates more yellow than any other frequency; blue stars radiate more blue; and red stars radiate more red. Given that visible light falls in such a narrow range (with wavelengths ranging from 400 to 700 nanometers), why do all stars’ peak frequencies occur in this range? It seems like a remarkable coincidence.

I wondered about this question for some time, until yesterday I finally realized the answer.

The sun radiates light mostly in the visible spectrum; when this light hits objects on earth, some of it is absorbed, and some is reflected. Most of the light that gets reflected is in the 400 to 700 nanometer range, so any device that picks up light will be most efficient if it can pick up this range. Our eyes evolved to use light to perceive objects, so they evolved to see light in this range. In other words, the reason we see light in the 400 to 700 nanometer range is because that is the range where the sun emits the most radiation. And we can see other stars because stars’ peak radiations do not vary all that much, so they all fall within the visible spectrum.

The classic statement of utilitarianism is “the greatest good for the greatest number.” Let’s dig a little deeper (but not too much deeper).

Definition

The single goal of utilitarian morality is to increase happiness and decrease suffering to the greatest extent possible. Any action in this direction is good, and should be encouraged; any action away from this direction is bad, and should be discouraged. All creatures that are sentient–that is, capable of happiness and suffering–are morally relevant, and their interests should be considered.

Utilitarianism does not only concern itself with physical pleasure. Happiness can mean reading a great book, having a long conversation with a good friend, or making a new discovery. It includes the taste of a fatty meal, but it also allows for the pleasure of lasting health. Philosopher John Stuart Mill examines pleasure in depth in his book, Utilitarianism.

You now understand the gist of what I mean when I say “Utilitarianism.”

Nomenclature

happiness: Any sort of pleasure or positive experience that a sentient being may feel.

suffering: Any sort of pain or negative experience that a sentient being may feel.

utility: The balance of happiness over suffering.

well-being: Synonymous with “utility.”

preference: This means exactly what you think it means. It is sometimes used synonymously with “interest.” Some utilitarian philosophers prefer to maximize the satisfaction of preferences rather than happiness.

interest: Something aligns with an individual’s interests if it supports his/her preferences or promotes his/her well-being.

Why?

See Why Utilitarianism?

Common Objections

Below is a list of common objections to Utilitarianism, and essays that address them.

1. If we are obligated to maximize utility, that means we are almost always acting immorally since we are not maximizing utility as much as we should be. See: Why We Identify Good and Evil; The Mistake of Immorality.

2. If we follow Utilitarianism, that will make life worse (e.g. will cause people to lose their sense of right and wrong, will lead to an Orwellian society, etc). See: Using Utilitarianism to Argue Against Utilitarianism.

3. In such-and-such hypothetical moral dilemma, Utilitarianism leads to a conclusion that I don’t like. See: Morality in the Real World.

4. Motives are important. According to Utilitarianism, there is no difference between behaving altruistically because you truly care and behaving altruistically to make yourself look good. See: Sustainable and Unsustainable Good; Why We Identify Good and Evil.

5. It is impossible to accurately measure happiness. Remind me to write an essay on this one. See: Measuring Happiness.

6. Utilitarianism can be used to justify the majority oppressing the minority. See: Tyranny of the Majority.

Further Reading

Consequentialism FAQ, Scott Alexander Siskind

All Animals Are Equal, Peter Singer

For more, see Utilitarianism Resources.

There is a distinction to be made between an obligation not to cause suffering and an obligation to prevent suffering. The former is almost universally accepted; the latter, to put it simply, is not. People agree that murder is seriously wrong, and insults are at least somewhat wrong. On the other hand, most feel that, while protecting others’ lives and reputations is a nice thing to do, it is not morally obligatory. Is this latter perspective defensible?

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There are two basic systems of ethics: consequentialism and deontology. Consequentialism holds that the morality of an action is based solely upon its consequences, while deontology claims that moral agents must follow certain absolute rules. (In practice this often means that deontologists judge the morality of an action by its underlying motive, as with Kant’s statement that the only thing that can be good is a good will.)

Consequentialism asserts that actions should be judged by their consequences. The case for consequentialism is simple: not only do consequences matter, but the only things that can possibly matter are consequences. If something does not have an external effect, it cannot be a relevant consideration. Since rules and motives have no necessary effect on the world, they do not have any inherent importance. This is not to deny that motives matter–they are important, but only with respect to their effects. A person with good motives will tend to do good, so good motives should be accepted and rewarded; a person with bad motives will tend to do harm, so bad motives should be discouraged. In short, good motives create sustainable good and bad motives do not.

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Sometimes, opponents of utilitarianism make arguments that presuppose that Utilitarianism is the best school of morality, and then try to argue against it. Seems a bit silly, doesn’t it? Even so, such arguments are almost embarrassingly common. Here are some examples.

Argument 1: Utilitarianism is impractical.

One problem with utilitarianism is that it is impractical to stop to calculate the utility of the expected outcomes of our various options every time that we have to make a decision. [1]

The site that provides this argument also provides the refutation:

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I (and others) have advocated many unusual beliefs in the name of utilitarianism. Consider the case of the doctor and the unwilling organ donor:

You are a transplant surgeon with five patients who each need a different organ: one needs a heart, one needs a lung, one a pancreas, one a kidney, and one a liver. You have no organ donors, and each of these men is on the verge of death. You are in your office, trying to figure out what to do, when a healthy man walks in for a checkup. You could kill him while he’s sleeping and harvest his organs, saving your five dying patients. Should you do it?

I said yes. More specifically I said that in the interest of the greater good, it’s worth it to kill one man in order to save five. This may seem a bit counter-intuitive. It took me a while to wrap my mind around it. What I didn’t mention before, though, is that I was wrong.

What do I mean? Why would I intentionally say something that I know is incorrect? Allow me to explain. The problem of the unwilling organ donor is multifaceted. In this hypothetical scenario, one is warranted in making certain assumptions and ignoring certain realities. When taken to the hypothetical world and freed of the many complications of reality, I can assume that my action has no side effects. I kill the napping patient, saving the five dying patients, and that’s that.

The real world is not nearly so simple. I would almost certainly be charged with murder and be thrown in jail for the rest of my life. I would be unable to continue my role as a doctor, unable to help those who most need it. Even if I weren’t convicted of murder, no one would trust me anymore and they’d refuse treatment out of fear that I’d kill them. Knowledge of this event would spread, causing many to become fearful of doctors even when they most need medical treatment. And that’s all without even mentioning the guilt and sorrow inflicted on the patients who received an organ from a murdered man–perhaps enough to drive some of them into permanent depression and even suicide. In the long run, killing the one man to save the five would have greater negative consequences than positive.

It’s not inconsistent to advocate one course of action in a hypothetical scenario and another in real life. In the hypothetical situation, we can simply forget about all the indirect effects of our actions. If it’s simply a question of killing the single patient or letting the five others die, my answer is an enthusiastic yes to the former. But that’s not what the question really is. In real life, there are always complications.

The purely hypothetical scenario may seem entirely disconnected with reality. But there is one case in which my hypothetical decision makes sense: where we assume that everyone on the planet is a complete Utilitarian. In such a case, people would understand that I did it to maximize utility. Laws would be built around maximizing utility, so I wouldn’t get arrested. People would continue to see me for treatment because they would know that I would only harm them if it was necessary to save others. The five original patients would not feel guilty because they would know that the one man died for the greater good. In fact, if everyone was a complete Utilitarian, the hypothetical scenario would not even be a dilemma. I wouldn’t need to kill anyone. I would simply explain the situation to the healthy man, and he would gladly sacrifice himself for the greater good.

We have now discussed two applications of the same hypothetical situation: one where we are in the real world and subject to all the constraints that the real world imposes on us, and one in which we live in an ideal society where everyone is fully interested in the good of everyone else. If we are following Utilitarian morality, the actions we take in each of these situations will be very different. It is worth examining these two moralities separately.

Strict Utilitarianism is the set of morality in which we assume that every rational being acts according to Utilitarianism; Practical Utilitarianism is that in which we remember all the constraints and imperfections of the real world.

Many of my previous writings addressed the set of morality that is Strict Utilitarianism. I often took the liberty of assuming that everyone holds maximum happiness of all beings as their highest goal. In real life, we cannot make this assumption.

Real life is not always as fun to speculate about. When we assume that everyone is a perfectly rational Utilitarian, our imaginations can soar. That’s not to say that the real world is by any means boring; but the Strict world is a very different one, and that makes it interesting. The simplicity of it makes it far easier to work out a system of morality, which is important when you’re dealing with a complicated philosophical argument – it’s hard enough without throwing in all the problems that the real world brings. When we ignore practical problems, it becomes that much easier to focus on the core issues of morality.

This idea of strict versus practical morality doesn’t just apply to Utilitarianism; it applies to many different schools of ethics to varying degrees. It seems to be more important for schools such as Utilitarianism that postulate that the moral worth of an action comes from its consequences; other moral systems, such as Libertarianism or Kantian Deontology, rely on the motives behind a behavior or dictate that certain actions are categorically right or wrong. In those cases, there’s not as much difference between an ideal world and the real world; but there’s usually still a noticeable distinction.

Although other schools of morality may have interesting results when applied to an ideal world versus reality, that’s not the primary subject of today’s discussion. Today we are focusing on Utilitarianism.

It is worth noting that Practical Utilitarianism doesn’t change anything about happiness itself; rather, the difference between Strict and Practical Utilitarianism is in how we go about achieving that happiness.

Strict Utilitarianism is that set of rules that apply in an ideal world. This is an interesting and very pure system, but it’s never going to be completely applicable (at least not at any time in foreseeable history). Why? Although by Utilitarianism each person has a higher probability of happiness than by any other school of morality, it’s possible that an individual person will have far lower happiness than she would like. For example, in the case of the organ donor there are five people made more happy and only one person made less happy. If you were placed in that scenario and randomly assigned to be one of those people, you have a five out of six chance of increased happiness. However, one of those six people is going to be much less happy, so this person will not be satisfied with the system. A complete Utilitarian would be willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good, and such people do exist: mothers who save their children over their selves, soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save their compatriots. But such behavior is not very common.

Truly altruistic behavior is rare because of how humans came to exist. We were not simply created for the purpose of maximizing happiness. We evolved over millions of years, and our instinctual sense of ethics is based on this evolution. Most of the time, our genetics won’t let us be too altruistic unless have have something to gain from it. As rational beings, we humans have a certain capacity to override this behavior. But along with the rational we also have the emotional, the instinctual. We are just as much restricted by our genetics as we are liberated by our rationality. Although it’s theoretically possible, I don’t think it’s likely that we as a species will ever fully free ourselves from the callings of genetics and self-interest in order to become truly selfless. It would be great if we did, but I just don’t see it happening.

Because our morality is restricted by our genetics, our hedonistic calculus must be modified to take this into account. Instead of using Strict Utilitarianism, which demands that every action work towards the greater good, we instead must develop a system of Practical Utilitarianism. This system requires that we remember the fact that people aren’t perfect utility-maximizing machines. Human beings are imperfect. Even the world’s strongest advocate of rational Utilitarianism still feels his genetics urging him to act selfishly. Sometimes humans just don’t have the willpower to help others at their own expense.

This does not mean we should give up trying to be altruistic. If anything, it’s all the more reason to try harder, because we have that much more to gain by trying. As we move from the ideal realm to the practical, we must ask ourselves a question: how do we work towards the greater good, knowing that people will often want to be selfish and emotionally driven – even ourselves?

In many cases, acting towards the greater good is not difficult because our instincts sometimes push us in that direction. Although we are not usually inclined to help others unless there is some benefit for ourselves, we very often find in ourselves the willingness to do no harm to other people, even when doing so would be of great benefit to us. To use an extreme example, we could benefit from murdering people who get in our way, as long as we do so carefully so no one finds out who the murderer was. And yet we don’t. Murder is exceedingly rare. We don’t not murder because we are afraid of punishment; the real reason we hold ourselves back is because we know that murder is wrong. Our instincts tell us that murder is wrong, and so does rational morality.

Negative cases – i.e., cases where an individual can benefit by decreasing the greater utility – are easy to reconcile with our instincts, and we have no trouble resisting our selfish desires. But with positive cases, where an individual must sacrifice her own happiness for the sake of greater happiness overall, we humans tend to have more difficulty. It is these cases that I wish to examine.

Consider a more formal definition of a moral dilemma: There is a scenario involving multiple agents. You must make a choice which will affect the happiness of everyone involved. Your choice will increase the happiness of some and decrease the happiness of others. Whatever you do, some people will benefit and others will not. Furthermore, one or more choices may conflict with your instinctive sense of morality.

To analyze a real-world moral dilemma, it’s useful to start by thinking of it in terms of Strict Utilitarianism. The situation becomes simply a question of maximizing happiness. Such a situation is much more clear-cut, and paints a picture of what the scenario should look like ideally. Then, in order to move from Strict to Practical Utilitarianism, we must begin to consider the real-world side effects of the possible choices. The main questions to ask yourself are these:

1. How would your choice affect you personally?
2. Which choices (if any) would you lack the willpower to make?
3. How would the people involved react to your choice?
4. How would people who are not involved react to your choice?

Now let us apply Practical Utilitarianism by posing moral dilemmas, asking these four questions, and attempting to resolve the quandary. These questions are not intended to give definitive answers, but rather they act as a guide to lead you to the best choice.

These dilemmas were discussed in previous posts from a Strict perspective. Now let’s look at the Practical side.

In the novel Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron (Vintage Books, 1976 – the 1982 movie starred Meryl Streep & Kevin Kline), a Polish woman, Sophie Zawistowska, is arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Auschwitz death camp. On arrival, she is “honored” for not being a Jew by being allowed a choice: One of her children will be spared the gas chamber if she chooses which one. In an agony of indecision, as both children are being taken away, she suddenly does choose. They can take her daughter, who is younger and smaller. Sophie hopes that her older and stronger son will be better able to survive, but she loses track of him and never does learn of his fate. Did she do the right thing? Years later, haunted by the guilt of having chosen between her children, Sophie commits suicide. Should she have felt guilty?

Here, Question 1 is the most important. Sophie made a decision which in a Strict world was the right one, but it ended up haunting her for the rest of her life. In the practical world, it’s unfair to ask people to choose which of their children gets to live. The whole situation is rather horrible. Sophie probably made the right choice, but a lot of the problem with this situation is that it’s too nuanced to be at all easy to judge.

Also, let us consider Question 3: how would the other people involved react to the choice? Maybe the older son is alive somewhere, but he completely despises himself because his mother picked him over his sister. But maybe a self-hateful existence is better than no existence at all. Wherever the son is, Sophie’s choice drastically affected him.

You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don’t he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don’t have any doubt that he means what he says. What should you do?

Here, Question 2 is the most important. The “right thing” is to kill your son, but do you have the necessary willpower? Is it fair for morality to ask you to do something like that? I think not. You should not be considered a bad person for failing to kill your son, and you should not be morally obligated to kill him.

A friend confides to you that he has committed a particular crime and you promise never to tell. Discovering that an innocent person has been accused of the crime, you plead with your friend to give himself up. He refuses and reminds you of your promise. What should you do? In general, under what conditions should promises be broken?

Strict Utilitarianism says you should turn in your friend. (1) If you did that, you may feel guilty about it. But you might feel guilty if you didn’t turn him in; and, more importantly, the freedom or imprisonment of an innocent person is more important than your feelings of guilt. (3) Your friend would no longer trust you, and you may even lose a friend. But again, justice is more important. (4) Other people may see that you turned in your friend, and they may also cease to trust you. This is a much broader effect, and must be weighed against the freedom of the innocent person. I would say that the freedom of the innocent person is worth more, but it’s arguable.

For a much larger-scope example, consider economic systems. In a Strict world, communism is the ideal economic system – in fact, any other system will quickly become communism. Purely altruistic people in a capitalist society will give away their goods and property to the people who need them most. Under Strict Utilitarianism, economics is almost absurdly simple.

In the Practical world, this is not so. People are self-interested most of the time. This is why capitalism has its advantages in real life. And it’s why economics is such a difficult problem. The conflict between Strict vs. Practical Utilitarianism does not only arise in fascinating-but-contrived moral dilemmas: it shows up quite clearly in something as commonplace and essential as economics. Designing an economic system for the real world is an extremely difficult problem because it does not just deal with a single dilemma, but with millions of dilemmas every day that must be coordinated in order to maximize overall utility. Because economics is not one dilemma but a constant stream of dilemmas, it is impossible to ask the four questions. But we can ask a different question: if we implement economic policy X, what choices will this lead to? Will people make choices that maximize utility? Proponents of capitalism claim that capitalism leads to choices that maximize utility. These proponents claim that people are nearly always self-interested and under a capitalist system this self-interest leads to economic growth (i.e. utility).

The issue of Strict vs. Practical Utilitarianism can also be applied to government. In a Strict world, no government is necessary because everyone does what’s best for everyone. But in the real world, we need a government in order to maximize utility. Like the problem of economic systems, the problem of how to create such a government is an immensely complex one which cannot be answered here. But we can start by asking: if we put government X over ourselves, what choices will this lead to? The question has no simple answer, but at least it’s a start.

Strict Utilitarianism provides a playing field where we can think about Utilitarianism and morality at the most abstract level. Unfortunately, such a playing field is not analogous to the real world. In order to answer real-world questions about morality, we have to consider the system of Practical Utilitarianism. I have explained some of the ideas behind this framework, and a way to use it to begin thinking about the problems of the real world: first consider the solution according to Strict Utilitarianism, and then ask the questions that allow your thinking to migrate from the Strict world to the real world.